Meanwhile, Back In the U.S.A....

Unfortunately for drug companies and bureaucrats, dumping unsafe drugs like Depo-Provera onto the Third World leads to charges of racism. To counter this impression, Dr. Malcolm Potts, the executive director of the International Fertility Research Program (an AID-funded population-control agency) suggests that Depo-Provera be approved for use here too -- for the appropriate "subgroups":

"I'd like to suggest that, even among the vast population of the United States, you can find subgroups of people who have the same problems as people in the Third World. They may not be so large, but you know you have several million immigrants from Mexico, who bring with them the same health problems, the same cultural assumptions, the same need for fertility regulation as they had in Mexico.

I think that if the FDA were to turn its attention to the needs of some of the subgroups within the United States, we would not be faced with the situation in which we can be accused of having a dual standard of medical practice and drug regulation around the world. If you look hard enough in the States, I think you can find the same type of population -- as I say, it may not be very large -- as one finds in the north of Thailand."